Government

The field of 15 candidates is set for the upcoming special election to succeed Mick Mulvaney in the U.S. House.
The two-week-long filing period ended at noon Monday, with three Democrats, seven Republicans and five third-party candidates signing up for the 5th District race.
Mulvaney, the Indian Land Republican who had just won his fourth congressional term in November, resigned in February when he became President Trump’s budget director.

Voters will now have three parties to choose from in the race to replace Mick Mulvaney in the U.S. House.
American Party candidate Josh Thornton announced Monday that he will seek the seat in the upcoming special election.
Thornton, 41, is a public/private school educator from Rock Hill. He said in a release that voters deserve a positive choice that isn’t a career politician within the framework of a broken two-party system that leads to unprecedented gridlock.

The two-week filing period for the vacant 5th District congressional seat opens at noon today.
Candidates may file through noon March 13 at the State Election Commission, 1122 Lady Street in Columbia.
The district includes Lancaster, Cherokee, Chester, Fairfield, Kershaw, Lee, Newberry, Spartanburg, Sumter, Union and York counties.
Rep. Mick Mulvaney of Indian Land resigned the seat Feb. 16 after he was confirmed as President Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget.

COLUMBIA – The S.C. House voted Wednesday to increase the state’s gas tax by two cents a gallon each year for the next five years to fix the state’s crumbling roads and bridges.
When fully phased in, the increase would raise an estimated $600 million per year.
The bipartisan vote was 97-18, with two members of Lancaster County’s House delegation – Speaker Jay Lucas (R-65) and Brandon Newton (R-45) voting for the plan.

KERSHAW – People want to get paid for the work they do.
Kershaw Town Officials have shifted $100,000 from one town account to another to make sure Corbett Construction – the company that’s installing a new 6,000-foot-long water line along Church Street – gets its money in a timely fashion.
The water line is part of an ongoing $2.23 million project that ties Haile Gold Mine to the town’s water system.

More than 50 Indian Land homeowners, wearing red shirts and hot under the collar, stormed out of Monday night’s county council meeting after the council reversed itself and voted 5-2 in favor of McClancy Seasoning’s rezoning request.
As the five hands went up in approval, people in the audience gasped, and some shouted out comments before abruptly leaving the council chambers.
“You’re kidding me!”
“See you in court!”
“Shameful disgrace. We will vote you out!”

The city of Lancaster has awarded $100,000 in hospitality-tax grants to stimulate tourism downtown, including $30,400 to help build a new front porch roof and doors at the Lancaster County Community Center on East Meeting Street.
“This is definitely good news,” said Dr. Charmaine Stradford, vice chair of the community center board. “I’m happy” to get any money from the city for the project.

Two new developments are pushing ahead the dispute over the Lancaster City Council District 3 election, with SLED gathering documentation about absentee ballots used in the race, and incumbent Jackie Harris taking her complaint against challenger Linda Blackmon directly to the S.C. Supreme Court.

And then there were seven.
The Republican field of candidates for the 5th District congressional seat grew yet again Tuesday to include former businesswoman and volunteer Penry Gustafson of Camden.

Gustafson, 46, is a former sales representative for Delta Foremost Chemical Corp., a longtime Kershaw County GOP member and a community volunteer for such local and regional organizations as Meals on Wheels and Operation Inasmuch.
Gustafson said she was running as an alternative to “today’s toxic political environment.”

Mayor John Howard and city council member Tamara Green Garris tangled this week over the city staff’s recommendation that certain information technology employees receive pay raises.
Howard called Garris’ questions about the raises “petty jealousy surrounding a mid-year budget review,” saying “it’s damn ridiculous. Pardon my language.”
Garris shot back: “Excuse me, do not curse at me. I didn’t make that motion,” to which Howard replied, “I did not curse at you.”